An interesting Premier League weekend

Morning all.

It was quite an interesting day of Premier League action yesterday. I chose not to watch Man City play Chelsea, in much the same way I would choose not to nail my bollocks to a plank of wood, and put something else on the TV instead. At one my phone started buzzing, and with the knowledge that it was 1-0 to City at half-time, I expected a lot of ‘Typical City’ messages as they went on to win the game.

Imagine my surprise when I looked and found a lot of ‘Come ons!’, a couple of ‘Get ins!’, and one ‘I’ve always liked Chelsea!’. Ironic though it might have been, that person has been blocked, their number deleted and they’re lucky I didn’t call the police. Imagine how terrible their evening would have been if the doorbell rang and Sting was standing there about to screech ‘Rooooooxaaaaaaaannnne’ at them! No less than they’d deserve, in my humble opinion.

Obviously there’s a long, long way to go in the title race. There are some twists and turns still to come, but that’s two game-days in a row where we’ve played first, and City haven’t dealt with the pressure. Two wins for Arsenal, two draws for them. I’m not hubristic enough, or downright foolish enough, to think anything is done and dusted yet though, and it’ll be interesting to see what happens over the next couple of games.

City play before us this week, facing Brighton on Wednesday before our game against Liverpool on Thursday, and then after the FA Cup weekend, they have a Manchester derby at Old Trafford early in the day when we visit Nottingham Forest in the evening. So, the shoe could be on the other foot and it’ll be up to us to respond to two games there’s absolutely no chance they lose. No chance, I tells ya.

Speaking of United, by the way, all is not well there (as if that wasn’t obvious already), with suggestions Ruben Amorim is on the brink. The Guardian report a big conflict between him and Sporting Director Jason Wilcox which could mean a change of head coach there. As I’ve long said, I don’t think any good can come from having your football club run by a Sir Jimmy.

With change also underway at Chelsea, there’s plenty going on, and when you look at the Premier League table, I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the teams in the title race are, mostly, the ones with the longest serving managers. I know what Liverpool did under Arne Slot last season was a bit of an outlier, but stability in football is a key ingredient to success, and their win last season was built primarily on a squad with huge influence from the long-standing reign of Jurgen Klopp. Stability is also kinda boring though, which is why some people get antsy about Mikel Arteta who – let me be clear – I absolutely want to see back up his work with silverware.

However, any objective analysis of what he’s done at Arsenal, and the way he’s built us from a hapless mid-table rabble to consistent title challengers, has to acknowledge how effective he’s been. There’s obviously still work to do, things we have to achieve as a football club, but United, for example, have gone through countless managers/head coaches since Alex Ferguson left, and even with all their resources and stature they’re a mess. Which is, by the way, something we ought to all take a moment to enjoy on this chilly January morning.

Whatever your opinion of our manager, is there any doubt that Arsenal act these days like a serious football club? Isn’t that what we all wanted when, not so long ago, the opposite seemed true? Owners who were distant; an executive that seemed to be made up as it went along; players who were just not at the right level to achieve what we all desire; a footballing structure that felt antiquated and a long-way behind the best practices of the modern game. Now look. Things have changed a lot, and the consequence of that is a team which looks like real title contenders. As I said, there’s a long way to go, but you can’t look at where we are now and not be excited about the opportunity we have in our hands.

Anyway, for more on that, and for more on the Premier League in general, it’s a two podcast day today. First up the Arsecast Extra, and later The 30 over on Patreon. For the former, we’ve already put out the call for questions on BlueSky @gunnerblog.bsky.social and @arseblog.com. So fire away using the hashtag #arsecastextra – or if you’re an Arseblog Member on Patreon, leave your question in the #arsecast-extra-questions channel on our Discord server. The pod should be out around noon today.

For now, have a good one.